Faculty of Science workplace health, safety and environment award 2006

The Faculty of Science Workplace Health, Safety and Environment Award for 2006 has been jointly awarded to Simone Wilson, Jodie Weller and Anne Fletcher in the School of Biological Sciences and to the technical staff in the 1^st year Chemistry laboratories, Miranda Phelan, Dan Tonzing and Waldo Correa.  This award is given annually to recognise staff in the Faculty of Science who propose innovative and exciting ideas on how to create, improve or maintain a safe, healthy and environmentally conscious workplace consistent with OHSE policies. 

The School of Biological Sciences, considered the environment, especially water conservation when submitting their application. Funding awarded to the school will be used to replace conventional water distillation equipment (called a ‘still’) in the 1^st year teaching laboratory. The existing still produces ‘waste water’ at a rate of 192 L/hour or 4800 L/week with a yield of only 3-4%. The proposed new still which uses advanced reverse osmosis (RO) technology, produces only one tenth of the ‘waste water’, with an equivalent or greater yield and uses up to 500 times less energy than that of the existing still. Taking into account the demands for distilled water, the new still will save approximately 10,750 L/week of clean tap water. The new still also has the added benefit of being much safer than the existing still as there is no chance of it running dry and starting a fire.

Funding awarded to the School of Chemistry will enable the re-engineering of existing storage rooms in order to effectively alter and improve the mechanisms currently in place for the transfer of acid and alkaline solutions. This will include the design and construction of new shelving eliminating the need for ‘above-head’ storage and improve the capacity to segregate incompatible chemicals. An existing trolley will be modified to include a detachable tray top reducing the need to manually handle heavy chemical containers and a system for filling bottles will be designed and developed allowing for one-handed operation minimizing the risk of chemical spills and strains to wrist and finger muscles.

The selection committee would like to thank all those who submitted applications and to sincerely congratulate the successful applicants on proposing initiatives which will have lasting benefits on the environment and the health and safety of staff.